


how sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame

by Tegami



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Begging, Body Worship, Bottom Grantaire, Dom/sub Undertones, Light Bondage, M/M, Overstimulation, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Pining, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Shakespearean Sonnets, Top Enjolras, in this scene at least, shakespearean dirty talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:06:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27182197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tegami/pseuds/Tegami
Summary: He could have shrugged and that would have been it. Say that he just found it precious. But Grantaire was Grantaire and he never could keep himself from oversharing and he was already dizzy with the way this night was going, so he told the truth.“The first thought I had when I read that poem was ‘If someone would ever call me “sweet boy” andmean it, I would probably pass out.’”OR: E & R are being ""casual"". Grantaire attempts to break some of their habits. Enjolras reads some angsty notes R left in his copy of Shakespeare's sonnets. Then they fuck
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 148





	how sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame

**Author's Note:**

> hi and welcome to my new fanfic called “I study English lit and got emotional during a lecture about early modern poetry” have a nice stay
> 
> I cannot stress enough how much this is NOT set in 2020. act responsibly don’t go to bars to kiss your friends on the lips
> 
> title is from Shakespeare's sonnet 59!

Grantaire arrived at the bar so late it was almost ridiculous he showed up at all. As he brushed snowflakes off his sleeves and shook out his hat, Bahorel was the only one to acknowledge him with a knowing grin. Their other friends didn’t need to show that they were very much aware of the reason Grantaire had bothered to come even after his shift.

(The reason was currently sitting in a booth between Combeferre and Courf in one of his “I have a serious adult job” dress shirts that had, frankly, an unfair number of buttons open, and gave Grantaire nothing but a short glance.)

For the first in many times that night, Grantaire paused and wondered if he should be feeling some kind of emotion at how _normal_ all of this had become. Since when had what had once been a careful dance between him and Enjolras turned into a set of habits he’d stopped questioning?

Grantaire shook his head, getting rid of the snow clinging to his hair as well as this thought process, and made his way over to Jehan at the bar. Because this was part of their habits too. He couldn’t just go over to Enjolras and tell him to get his coat. It was for the same reason he couldn’t have just showed up at his apartment without pretending to run into each other first.

It wasn’t what they were.

No, Grantaire had to sit down at the bar. He had to talk to Jehan, who was entirely aware of what was happening but too used to it to comment, and he had to let his glance wander over to Enjolras every five minutes or so. Their eyes had to meet, and a second, and a third time.

Grantaire wondered what would happen if he dared break their rules. If he simply walked over now, said, “Can we go?”, and took Enjolras’s hand.

But that wasn’t what they were. That wasn’t what they were doing.

What they were doing was positively eat each other up with their eyes over the course of the evening, which might have been part of the reason why Grantaire preferred to arrive late. This way he only had to endure twenty minutes of across-the-room sexual tension with Enjolras before Feuilly yawned and stood up to catch one of the last trains, everybody else automatically following out the door.

This was Enjolras’s cue to smile, just a tiny quirk of lips, as he looked at Grantaire and left the bar before him with Combeferre and Courfeyrac. Grantaire hugged Jehan goodbye, waved to the rest of them as they made their way outside in a too-loud bulk.

The metro entrance across the street swallowed their laughter and all that was left was Enjolras’s hair by the streetlamp and Grantaire’s fingers reaching for the pack of cigarettes in his jacket’s inner lining.

The snowfall had stopped in the half hour or so he’d spent inside and everything remained coated with a thin white layer, not quite beautiful enough that Grantaire would have taken a picture, but there was a quietness to the street that calmed him.

It was his turn to smile, and it came easy to Grantaire. He wanted to be there. He did. But also, Grantaire wasn’t a fan of habits, or routine. He hadn’t allowed himself to accumulate them over the years, or he hadn’t been able to afford them, or he’d found that he simply couldn’t keep up with them.

Enjolras, though, was a poster child for habits. He had a morning routine, a workout routine, a cleaning routine. He did his laundry every Friday and he got his groceries every Monday and Thursday. Logically speaking, this entire thing was probably _his_ fault. He kept on and on about how Grantaire brought too much chaos into his life (ridiculous – Enjolras’s existence did nothing if not beg for chaos), but maybe it was Grantaire who couldn’t stand the routine that Enjolras had somehow brought into his.

But still, Grantaire smiled, because that was what he wanted to be doing, wasn’t it? Because he knew what would follow; Enjolras’s hand in his neck, Grantaire’s leg between Enjolras’s, something that in its whole wound its way almost precisely along the line between lovemaking and hate-fucking. And then, Grantaire would leave.

And then,

And then?

Grantaire stopped smiling. He didn’t _want_ to leave.

But he’d fulfilled his part already. Enjolras was nodding along the road.

“Let’s go,” he said, and started walking towards his apartment.

Grantaire’s part read the following: The young man follows his not-lover and not-friend to his apartment, arguing over something along the way that will make them more insistent to get their teeth onto each other but nothing that will make them stop on the street and shout. He doesn’t ask questions because there is nothing to question. And he won’t make love to his not-friend, but something extremely close.

Grantaire hated following pre-written parts, even if he’d contributed to them being written in the first place.

He stayed where he was.

Enjolras took three steps before he stopped and turned, frowning. Right then, Grantaire expected him to end it, them, whatever they were, because Grantaire had dared to break the rules.

But Enjolras just frowned.

So Grantaire said, “My place tonight?”

This seemed like a good place to start, he thought. It was nothing, it shouldn’t mean anything. Enjolras had been to his apartment before, for house parties and movie nights and meetings. But never like this, never alone, at night.

It changed enough to make Enjolras shift his weight from one foot to the other before he said, “Why not.”

It changed that they would have to take the metro together instead of the short walk to Enjolras’s place. It changed that Enjolras would have to be the one to leave at night if he so desired.

Grantaire liked that part. He wasn’t sure he would have been able to bring himself to roll out of bed and face the cold wind that very night.

It also changed that Enjolras would be in his home, and it shouldn’t have felt important, but it did. Grantaire had invited him before thinking about the state of the place, without mentally going through which paintings and sketches were currently strewn across his desk and floor. He didn’t mind, truly, what Enjolras might see.

Shouldn’t that mean something?

Enjolras was quiet all the way into the metro and for a while, Grantaire thought that he’d gone too far after all. But that was ridiculous. Whose place they went to was nothing but technicalities, wasn’t it? Shouldn’t it be? Still, Grantaire could feel Enjolras’s unease with every unexpected shift of his feet, every unnatural twitch of his shoulder.

Finally, Grantaire started telling him about his annoying course in art historical analysis. It was a topic carefully chosen for how little Enjolras knew about it and was thus nearly impossible to turn into a fight, unless both of them desperately wanted to.

They didn’t, and by the time they were out on the street again, Grantaire lighting a new cigarette, Enjolras almost seemed like himself again.

Only then, Grantaire turned his head to find his nose scrunched up.

“I just don’t understand how you can tolerate to reek of smoke all the time,” he said.

Grantaire could feel the skin in his neck heat and prickle. It was a minimal sensation in contrast to how the anger used to course through his body uninhibited, back before he’d stopped drinking, but it was reminiscent enough of it that Grantaire found himself looking right into Enjolras’s eyes while taking a deep drag.

“They make you die faster,” he said, because he knew how much Enjolras would hate it.

“Jesus Christ,” said Enjolras, rolling his eyes with the movement of his entire head. “What a pretentious, stupid thing to say. I thought you were smarter than this by now.”

Grantaire wanted to say, Apparently not. He wanted to say, Apparently I’m still the same person you hate to recall so much.

Because that was what they did. They said things that were exponentially worse than the things that came before, until one was shouting, or they were thrown out of whatever room they were in, or one said something that was bad enough to make the other leave.

Grantaire didn’t want to leave tonight.

He breathed and didn’t say anything. When he just forced himself to breathe for a second, he could see that this was what Enjolras wanted, if unconsciously. He was counting on their old habits to steer them into a dynamic he was more familiar with than whatever Grantaire was making them do.

But Grantaire, for once, wasn’t willing to play along. Call it morbid curiosity, or boredom, or being fed-up. He looked Enjolras in the eye, took the cigarette from between his lips, and flicked it into the gutter.

Enjolras stared. Grantaire resumed his rant. “Anyway,” he said, “I can’t wrap my head around how that guy keeps clinging to his ‘death of the author’ shtick. Last week we discussed Picasso, and-”

By the time Grantaire’s apartment door closed behind them, Enjolras had caught himself again. He pushed Grantaire against the wall there with one firm hand against his chest and kissed him with the fervour of someone who was entirely aware of the game Grantaire was playing and was having none of it. _This is what we’re doing tonight, same as always_ , he seemed to bite into Grantaire’s lips. _Stop questioning it._

But, God, if there was anything Grantaire was good at, it was questioning Enjolras.

It took his body a few seconds to catch up with his mind’s resolve and push Enjolras away with a hand to his chest. His face would have been expressionless if it weren't for his clenching jaw.

Grantaire gave him a smile that he hoped was sweet rather than smug. “Tea,” he said. “You want some?”

He was halfway inside his kitchen already when Enjolras managed to say, “What?”

“I just wanted a hot drink,” said Grantaire, already filling the kettle. “My hands are freezing.”

He put out two mugs, trying not to be too obvious about watching Enjolras out of the corner of his eye. He lingered near the door for a few more seconds and R almost expected him to bold, but then Enjolras sighed, toed off his shoes, and joined him at his kitchen counter.

Grantaire only realised that Enjolras hadn’t actually agreed to tea until he was handing him his mug, but the other didn’t complain. He didn’t thank him, either, instead staring at the liquid as if he still couldn’t figure out why it was there.

Grantaire sat down, sipped at his own, and realised he’d run out of things to talk about. He’d long since exhausted the university topic.

Sitting at a sparely lit kitchen table in the middle of the night seemed to call for a more intimate topic, but that wasn’t what they were.

Was it?

Could Grantaire _make_ this what they were?

Enjolras stayed where he was standing at the counter; anything to avoid getting too comfortable. He brought his steaming cup up to his nose and breathed in. “Huh,” he said. “Isn’t this the tea Jehan is so obsessed with?”

Grantaire nodded. “They kept complaining that I had no decent tea and finally planted some in my cupboard.” Something deep in his chest swelled a little, warm and gentle. Enjolras was one of the busiest people he'd ever known, definitely the most driven, and then he turned around and kept this quiet shelf of knowledge about his friends tucked away in a growing corner of his brain. Grantaire wondered what Enjolras kept in the compartment under “R”, if he could identify any of his things by smell.

He shivered at the thought.

Enjolras smiled, took a tentative sip of the hot liquid. He leaned on one hand behind him on the kitchen counter, his pose relaxed, eyes on Grantaire.

R took a sip himself, pretended it didn’t burn its way down his throat and forced himself to suppress the urge to fill the silence between them.

They made it to about ten seconds - Grantaire knew because he had been counting along - until Enjolras, _Enjolras_ , was the one to break.

“How’s,” he said, pausing for just a moment as if realising how stupid he sounded after he’d already committed to asking, “Work?”

Graintaire smiled. He tried not to think of this as a competition, as a fight. That was exactly what he was trying to avoid. Still, for once, he had managed to shake Enjolras, even if just a minimal amount. It was hard not to gloat.

“Still like it too much, probably. Retail jobs are great for me because they’re stressful in a simple way. It makes me feel like a class traitor. But there’s something nice about ending your shift and not spending a second thinking about it after.”

“You sound like my mother,” said Enjolras, which, given the history with his family, was a possibly loaded statement. “She always talked about the pleasures of having a day job that has nothing to do with your passions. Nevermind that she wanted me to have the kind of job that leaves no room for any freetime.”

Grantaire paid close attention to Enjolras’s expression, posture, the grip on his mug, but couldn’t find a single point of tension. Just a bit over a year ago, the bare mention of his family would have been a sign that Enjolras was spiralling into something only Combeferre had the skills to get him out of.

“You know,” said Grantaire. He decided that if this wasn’t the setting for a cliché-filled deep talk, what was? “You’ve changed a lot. Positively, I mean. You’ve grown.”

“You think so?”, said Enjolras. It seemed like his surprise stemmed from Grantaire having noticed, or possibly acknowledged it. Enjolras had put too much active effort into it as not to be aware himself how much he’d changed.

“Obviously. For example, you’ve grown from genuinely hating my guts to only hating most of my opinions.”

Enjolras smiled a crooked smile at that, as if he wasn’t sure if it was meant to be a joke or an invitation to argue. Grantaire himself couldn’t entirely say.

“Well,” said Enjolras, and put his mug down on the counter behind him. Both his palms and cheeks were red from its heat. “We’ve had this conversation before, so you know that I never truly hated you. My opinion of you has shifted, though, you’re right about that. And so have you.”

Understatement of the century. Back when him and Enjolras had met for the first time, Grantaire had been a burned-out secret alcoholic in his senior year of college with a creative writing major that had robbed him of any scrap of motivation or inspiration he’d ever possessed. Then he’d grown into a very-very-public alcoholic slash college dropout slash person who lived on friends’ sofas and in strangers’ beds and doodled on coasters because he couldn’t bare the thought of words but needed to express himself _somehow_.

Then he’d grown into someone who nearly kicked the bucket and made the few friends that genuinely cared about him sit around hospital waiting rooms.

Rehab. Restart. Hesitant, _very_ hesitant illustration major.

“Have I?”, asked Grantaire, obviously joking.

“Yes,” said Enjolras, frowning. “For example, when I met you, you were going to become an author.”

Grantaire laughed, the sound clunky and unfitting into the rest of their conversation so far. “That’s not the first thing I thought of, but sure. To be fair, by the point we met, I had already given up on that particular dream.”

“I still think you could do it if you wanted to,” said Enjolras. “Easily.”

“I appreciate your can-do spirit, but I’m pretty sure academia took any love for writing I’ve ever had. Also doesn’t help that holding a book makes me physically sick to this day.”

Enjolras looked taken aback, like Grantaire was lying to him. “You mean you don’t read?”

“If you’re about to give me a lecture on how a man who never reads lives one life, but a man who does has lived a thousand, I swear t-”

“No,” said Enjolras, laughing a little. “No. It’s just because you can quote so many things."

“Oh,” said Grantaire. “I guess I do. My memory is pretty good.”

“Huh,” said Enjolras.

“Yeah,” said Grantaire.

They were silent for a while that wasn’t entirely comfortable. Grantaire lifted his mug to take another sip and realised it was empty.

So was his emotional battery. He’d had enough changes for one night.

“So,” he said, looking at Enjolras, “What are you in the mood for?”

Enjolras cocked his head. “Come here and I’ll tell you.”

* * *

It was late and they were tired from a full day out in the cold, and Grantaire’s bedroom was warm and comfortable. They had quickly taken off their shirts and pants and were just kissing lazily now. Grantaire was sitting on the edge of his bed with Enjolras in his lap, legs wrapped around him, kissing down Grantaire’s neck as if it was his explicit goal to feel him shiver.

One of Enjolras’s hands was on Grantaire’s chest, subconsciously (or not-to-subconsciously) playing with the hair there and Grantaire tried and failed at forcing his own focus elsewhere.

Grantaire had never wasted much thought on his appearance or body - he knew there was nothing about him to brag about, but he'd found enough people willing to still fall in bed with him that he supposed it couldn't be too bad.

At the beginning of their - of whatever this was, however, Grantaire had looked at Enjolras's body, smooth and freed of what little hair it'd had, and decided that Enjolras couldn't possibly more than tolerate Grantaire's; his dark body hair, how he had to make a conscious effort not to hunch his back, his thick fingers that popped if you bent them far enough. He couldn’t possibly imagine that someone like Enjolras, someone who made an effort to look like he did, would think of Grantaire as anything but a compromise.

And so he was constantly chasing the goal of providing the best possible sex Enjolras had ever had, to make up for the fact that it was _him_. It surprised him, again and again, that this seemed to work, as Enjolras proved continuously willing to fuck him. Grantaire didn’t dare question his luck.

It was easier than he’d expected, anyhow, to please Enjolras in bed. He’d let Grantaire top him for the first few weeks and they’d occasionally changed things up since then. He didn’t have any kinks that were dangerous or seemed extreme to Grantaire. Enjolras liked to be made to beg to come and do the same to Grantaire and they’d used ropes to tie Enjolras’s hands together more than once.

Luckily, Grantaire’s kink was, essentially, Enjolras. So having a lapful of him worked greatly in his favour that night.

“You wanna move?”, asked Grantaire softly against Enjolras’s ear. R’s breath made him pull up his shoulders, but he remained where he was.

“Mhm,” said Enjolras, and guided Grantaire’s mouth with a gentle finger against his jaw back to his own, just kissing him again, licking his lip so softly he almost couldn’t feel it, breathing in the same air.

“I’ll take that as a no,” said Grantaire, and he truly didn’t mind. He’d asked and made an effort to pretend that this entire situation was only about the end result, nothing else. Enjolras didn’t have to know that Grantaire would have been only too happy to stay wrapped around each other for ever and ever.

They kept kissing, and breathing, and soon Grantaire had lost all feeling for time and place.

He had no idea they were slowly grinding into each other, no idea who had started it all, until Enjolras acknowledged it.

“Fuck,” he panted, “Can you come from this?”

 _I could come from anything you gave me_ , thought Grantaire, so widely unfitting for their situation and relationship that he grew scared for a second that he might actually have said it out loud.

When Enjolras didn’t push him away, he nodded. “You know I’m easy.”

Grantaire could feel Enjolras grin. “Good,” he said, and picked up his pace a tiny bit. Grantaire wanted to protest that no, it had been perfect just before, this was almost too much, he was going to come - when he reminded himself again that this was the goal, after all. He would have been able to stay in this exact position, hard and comfortable with Enjolras’s back muscles shifting under his hands and him holding onto his shoulders and kissing him kissing him _kissing him_ , until they’d both fallen asleep.

Enjolras wasn’t here to fall asleep. He was here to come and leave.

The thought threw Grantaire off enough that he had to make an active effort to return to the room, to Enjolras’s silent sounds against him, to the heat pooling in his belly. He reminded himself that he was enjoying this, that he always enjoyed this.

That he wanted this.

Still, by the time that Enjolras’s started moving more frantically and was panting more than kissing, Grantaire hadn’t quite caught up. He could feel Enjolras rest his head on his shoulder and come with short sharp thrusts, but as usual, it didn’t take Grantaire much to follow suit; he just had to focus on Enjolras, how they were humping with their underwear still on like teenagers too scared to find out how any other sex worked, Grantaire being enough to make him as turned on and desperate as he was, Enjolras letting R take him home, hold him, fuck him-

Enjolras hadn’t even caught his breath but was grinding into him still, trying to make him come as well.

“Come on,” Enjolras panted into his shoulder, “Come _on_.”

And, as he’d promised, Grantaire did so quite easily.

* * *

They lay wrapped together on top of the covers long enough, longer than usual, that Grantaire became increasingly aware of how itchy and uncomfortable his underwear was becoming. He still refused to be the first one to move; anything that Enjolras was willing to give, even small things like this, he would take. He couldn’t remember a time where it had been any other way.

Grantaire realised he must have dosed off at some point when he woke up without Enjolras half on top of him. He kept his eyes closed and commanded himself to not feel anything about being left like that, without a word, as if they were strangers. Although Grantaire had wordlessly slipped out of Enjolras’s apartment before in futile attempts to pretend that that was what he wanted.

Only then did he realise that the sound of rushing water he could hear through the wall came from his own bathroom, and that Enjolras had only gone to take a shower. Grantaire simultaneously felt a pang of relief that he hadn’t just vanished and dread of still having to do the thanks-for-fucking-see-you-soon dance he still hadn’t gotten accustomed to. Wouldn’t get accustomed to.

He got up and changed into pyjama pants in lieu of actually cleaning up as long as his bathroom was occupied. _If you were together for real_ , his stupid mind offered, _this wouldn’t be a problem. You could just walk into the bathroom while Enjolras is showering_.

And now he was thinking about Enjolras showering.

Grantaire opened his window as far as it would go to cool off the room and himself. Immediately, the freezing night air made goosebumps grow all over his body. He stood there staring out into the street until his toes were freezing from the cold air wafting around them and he physically couldn’t take it anymore. He left the window open but climbed into bed, pulled the covers up to his chin and stretched his limbs out as far as possible. He’d heard that this made you warm up faster.

Grantaire listened as the water was turned off and Enjolras rummaged through his bathroom. He opened the door - he hadn’t locked it and R physically forced himself not to overthink this -, feet padded through the hallway and his bedroom door opened.

“Fuck,” said Enjolras quietly, “What are you doing? It’s so cold in here.”

Grantaire didn’t open his eyes while Enjolras went to close the window. He did open them when Enjolras came over and pulled at the covers.

“Scoot over,” he said.

Grantaire told himself he didn’t move a little too quickly when he rolled over onto his stomach on the far side of his bed to make room for Enjolras. Who was about to come into bed with him. For non-sexual reasons?

Enjolras was wearing Grantaire’s underwear and one of his T-Shirts, Grantaire realised from the single glimpse he got before Enjolras buried himself under Grantaire’s thick winter blanket next to him. The realisation made his chest swell in a sensation so intense it wasn’t entirely pleasant.

“Cold cold cold,” said Enjolras, laid down facing Grantaire and stuck his cold feet against Grantaire’s warm legs. “I don’t want to go outside. It’s snowing again.”

It was, R realised. He had watched snowflakes drift down to earth through his window earlier but the meaning of it hadn’t reached his brain until now. He was tired.

“You could stay.”

He wanted to say it with closed eyes, like he wasn’t really awake, like it didn’t matter to him if Enjolras was in his bed or not. Instead, he hardly blinked, looked Enjolras straight in the eye and hoped this proposal didn’t come off as intense as it was meant.

“I wish,” said Enjolras, immediately killing Grantaire by heart attack. How he could say these things and not feel the intensity that Grantaire wished they were meant with was entirely beyond him. “I have a work thing tomorrow.”

“It’s Sunday,” said Grantaire, stupidly. Of course Enjolras didn’t actually have a work thing. Letting these little white lies slip by without calling attention to them stood in the metaphorical contract of What They Were.

Enjolras was forced to play along. “Fuck bosses, right? Except that I’m my own boss and I set up this meeting in order to _build good relations_. I hate myself sometimes.”

“Don’t go,” said Grantaire and immediately let his eyes close as if that would make Enjolras blame _whatever the fuck he was trying to do_ on his sleepiness. “Fuck the system,” he added, hoping Enjolras would believe that he was talking about the work thing.

Grantaire heard him laugh, but he also pulled his slightly warmed-up feet away and rolled out of bed. Grantaire kept his eyes closed and listened to the sound of Enjolras getting ready to leave, picking up clothes and putting them on, packing his bag.

Grantaire was almost asleep out of sheer willpower when he heard Enjolras say, “Hey, what’s this?”

His mind immediately went to the dozens of drawings and paintings and sketches of Enjolras scattered throughout the apartment, many of them hidden away, most of them not. Enjolras knew about them, Grantaire telling him more or less jokingly again and again how Enjolras was single-handedly make him pass all of his classes by acting as a muse. He was terrified of being found out, of Enjolras not being aware of the amount of drawings that existed of him in this household and then finding out and reading things into it that were probably entirely correct. So Grantaire had always been rather obnoxious about letting Enjolras know. Sketching him during meetings, sending him digital drawings that had gotten him an A, going as far as jokingly putting tiny Enjolrases into background crowds in his children’s books class.

Grantaire was almost unwilling to leave his numb half-asleep state for one of his drawings, something Enjolras should be aware of, but he cracked one eye open anyway.

Enjolras was holding a book that R knew had been lying on his desk.

Immediately and unreasonably, Grantaire’s entire body went cold and then extremely hot.

“Oh,” he said, like his fingers weren’t itching to rip the book out of Enjolras’s hands. “Just some sonnets.”

“I thought you didn’t read,” said Enjolras, turning the battered copy over in his hand. It wasn’t meant as doubtful or suspecting, but Grantaire felt like he had been caught in a lie anyway.

“No, I don’t. I mean, this is the only book I can really open anymore that’s not for uni. Nostalgia, I guess. I used to be obsessed with Shakespeare.”

“I remember vaguely,” said Enjolras, and Grantaire didn’t really believe that he did. Had they ever even talked about Grantaire’s majors or interests all those years ago? Granted, for obvious reasons there were some larger memory gaps in his early twenties.

Enjolras turned the book and let it fall open where the pages wanted to, which made Grantaire want to scream. He didn’t want to know which sonnet he’d spent the most time staring at.

“What,” said Enjolras, laughing silently. “You weren’t lying about being obsessed,” he said and flipped through the pages that Grantaire knew for a fact were a. dog-eared to shit and b. covered and covered in his own comments.

“I know,” said Grantaire. “To my defense, I was 20 and gay and depressed.”

He didn’t mention that a lot of his highlights and notes had been added during the last few months. Enjolras suddenly proving willing to fuck him had let loose an existential crisis that only consultation with good old William had been helpful with. It was the only coping mechanism Grantaire had had left, and it was soothing like nothing else to read these lines written four hundred years ago about a man in love with a much more beautiful man and thinking _me too man, me too_.

Enjolras was still flipping pages. He stopped near the front, laughed and read aloud, “‘DICK JOKE’, written in all caps. Why do I feel like you’re a delight to have in class?”

“It is, though,” Grantaire found himself defending the least of his problems. “Is it sonnet 20? ‘Pricked thee out’? He’s talking about mother nature sticking a penis on someone. It’s a dick joke.”

“Huh,” said Enjolras. He read part of it aloud: “‘And for a woman wert thou first created, / Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting, / And by addition me of thee defeated / By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.’ Fair enough. Fair _enough_.”

“Thank you,” said Grantaire and laid back down. He didn’t even know when he’d sat up. Could this conversation please be over now?

“Hey, can I borrow this?”

Grantaire breathed like a normal human would. He said “Yeah, sure,” like a normal human would. “They’re all free on the internet, though.”

“I like books,” said Enjolras and slipped Grantaire’s copy of Shakespeare’s Sonnets into his bag. “Anyway, I’ll see you next week.”

“Good night,” said Grantaire.

“Good night,” said Enjolras and closed the bedroom door behind him.

He could have said no, Grantaire realised way too late. He could have just kept the book. But having a choice always ocurred to him too late with Enjolras.

* * *

It took Enjolras three days to text, which was way faster than expected considering Grantaire had thought along the lines of “never”. He was on his way home from a closing shift when his phone chimed twice.

_Can I come over after your shift?_

And then:

_For the sake of transparency, I already left the house but realised I should ask. I’ll go watch a movie with C &C if you’re busy etc._

Grantaire genuinely considered saying no for the two blocks he had left to walk. But of course, he would only be putting off the inevitable “well we can’t fuck anymore because you’re way too weird about this” conversation and Grantaire had always been the kind of person to pull a band-aid off in one go.

_sure sure, I’m about to shower some of the retail gunk off so it might take me a second to get the door_

Two flights of stairs and one apartment door later, Grantaire was so angry at himself for making it sound like he was expecting Enjolras to come over to fuck that he could have banged his head against a wall. If anything, he was preparing his body to hide under his covers for two days straight after the conversation they were about to have.

As expected, the doorbell rang while Grantaire was still fully naked and dripping wet, if out of the shower. And, to his credit, he only _almost_ slipped and fell in a hurry to get some sweatpants and a shirt on.

“Hi”, is what Grantaire would have said if Enjolras would have given him the chance. As it was, he buzzed the door open, kicked some stray clothes and things under various pieces of furniture and was back at the door in time to get a hand in his wet hair and Enjolras’s lips on his. He pulled away after just a moment and beat Grantaire to it.

“Hi.”

“I- hi,” said Grantaire and looked down at himself. He was holding the copy of his sonnets and only then realised that Enjolras had pushed them against his chest when he stepped into the place. “Thank you for- these.”

Enjolras smiled. “Thank you for letting me lend them.”

Grantaire felt like he’d missed something. Had Enjolras not actually read them? Had he flipped through a few pages, realised it wasn’t for him and was just pretending out of politeness?

There was no reason he could have read even a fraction of the 126 first sonnets about this man being in love with a young, beautiful man, who he idolized and criticized and venerated and courted - without it being entirely obvious why Grantaire had highlighted and underlined the lines that he had.

And it wasn’t like Enjolras acted as if nothing had happened. There was a smugness in his eyes, a twinkle that was unnerving and made Grantaire’s heart beat too fast.

He should have let it go right then, he knew it. He should have been thankful for whatever had happened that prevented Enjolras from freaking out and never calling him again. But a part of him couldn’t pretend he wouldn’t be obsessing over this forever if he didn’t at least try to ask.

“How did you like them?”

“They were,” said Enjolras and untied his shoes after hanging up his coat, “Quite engaging.”

Grantaire waited for more, but Enjolras seemed to be done. He realised the apartment door was still standing open and closed it. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Enjolras straightened up and smiled. “You say you’ve had that copy for a while?”

“Obviously,” said Grantaire and waved the book in his hand around. It had crossed the point of being aesthetically well-loved and looked like straight up garbage at this point.

Enjolras nodded. “I could tell.”

Grantaire stared at Enjolras, who apparently refused to speak in anything other than riddles tonight, and tried to figure out what was happening. They were still standing in the tiny hallway but Grantaire dared not move away until he'd figured out what kind of evening Enjolras was expecting. Any step towards either the bedroom or kitchen would ruin his already questionable charade of being on top of this conversation.

Enjolras, too, just stared back for a while. In contrary to Grantaire, though, he seemed almost amused.

Before Grantaire could make their silence into a game of who could hold it the longest he forced himself to speak up and, ironically, caused a tie. At the same time as Grantaire asked, “I still have some of that tea,” Enjolras said, “I would love to tie you up.”

They both blinked.

Grantaire laughed while Enjolras seemed almost taken aback. “It’s just a thought I had. Obviously, we don’t have to try it right now, or ever, or do anything tonight-”

“Fuck no, let’s do it,” said Grantaire and he meant it. He still didn’t know what was happening, but Enjolras seemed happy and okay and by God he wouldn’t let this opportunity go by. He’d tied Enjolras’s hands together before, more for fun than in a full-out scene, and never even considered that the reverse was something he himself would want to try. But as so often, once combined with Enjolras, he suddenly wanted nothing else.

It wasn’t that the thought was entirely pleasant and dreamy. Grantaire had been asked to fuck people, some of whom had been basically strangers, while they were tied up more than once and he liked it just fine. The reverse had never occurred to him, though, and it wasn’t because he was too much of a top or whatever. He was quite versatile, thank you very much. It was- it was his body, Grantaire guessed, and his face. They didn’t exactly offer themselves up to be paid close attention to. Worshipped, if one was intense about it.

“Really?”, asked Enjolras, not surprised, but to make sure.

Grantaire breathed. He was less delighted than he had been just a moment ago, but he was still _very_ on board. “Really. To be fair, I don’t think I have any rope that would work.”

Enjolras grinned like he was genuinely thrilled about how this evening was going. “We’ll figure it out.”

* * *

“You’ll have to stop laughing at some point,” said Enjolras.

Obviously, this only made Grantaire laugh harder. “I’m sorry, I just- I can’t,” he managed.

“I feel like a bad teacher. ‘Well, if you aren’t going to take this seriously-’”

“God, this is so stupid,” said Grantaire and sniffed. He had tears running down the sides of his face from laughing that he couldn’t wipe away. His hands were stretched above him and chained to his headboard with the bright pink, fuzzy handcuffs Éponine had given him as part of a joke present years and years ago. “She can never know I actually used them. She’d never let me live it down.”

It wasn’t that they were shitty handcuffs. They didn’t cut into Grantaire’s skin at all even if he tucked and they didn’t seem easy, if possible, to break. (Éponine gave shitty presents, but she didn’t give _shitty_ presents.) They just looked so incredibly cheesy.

“I’m good, I’m good,” said Grantaire, took one more deep breath and watched his own bare chest rise and fall. He was still wearing his sweatpants. “I’m sorry. I’ll have to stop thinking about Éponine or I’ll end up with the world’s worst conditioning after this.”

Enjolras smiled. He stood up from where he’d been kneeling on the mattress and pulled off his own clothes until he was in just shirt and underwear. He didn’t hurry and he didn’t talk, and Grantaire tried to calm down his heart rate that had nothing to do with his laughing fit at this point.

This situation was unnerving. He’d made the fatal mistake of skipping the setup when he’d imagined this, hadn’t thought that he would still be fully dressed - at least halfway - and his dick soft and his brain clouded by nothing. He’d always been uncomfortable with the latter. In his fantasy, Enjolras and him just went from making out against a wall to him being naked and tied up and three seconds away from coming.

This was just them hanging out in a room and Grantaire happened to be immobile and free to be looked at however much Enjolras wanted, who was taking full advantage of it.

“So,” said Enjolras from where he stood at the foot of the bed. The same spark was still in his eye, but he was so calm about it that Grantaire’s goosebumps got goosebumps. “A colour?”

“Green,” said Grantaire and as always wondered if he was lying. He _was_ fine and he wanted to keep going, but he did want them to keep going _right now_ and _faster_ and _just please please do something, anything_. But it was too early to beg.

Enjolras climbed back onto the mattress and Grantaire listened to the familiar small sounds his bedframe made. His face was hot with an emotion he couldn’t name - it wasn’t awkwardness, and it wasn’t embarrassment.

Enjolras straddled Grantaire and took his face into his hands. He ran a finger across his stubble, his jawline, his temple, his lip.

He traced the same lines with his lips.

Grantaire was close to bursting with the effort of holding in a million comments and jokes that wanted to get out to distract himself, or Enjolras, from what was happening.

Enjolras’s hands found their way down to his chest up to his arms to the point where Grantaire’s hands held onto the bedframe, down again to his chest and stomach. Grantaire breathed in when Enjolras touched him there, not quite a gasp but close enough to make him feel stupid about it. He didn’t know if it was a natural reaction from exposing this vulnerable part to someone so willingly or the underlying feeling he had about most of his body parts. He wasn’t ashamed of them, had never been. He had a sort of indifferent working relationship with his body, although he hadn’t always been kind to it. Grantaire just wasn’t used to anyone paying such close attention to _all_ of him.

That was what Enjolras was doing. He was running hands and lips across every exposed inch of Grantaire as if he was studying him. He spent a long time, longer than Grantaire thought they both would be able to keep silent, just kissing him deep and feeling every part of him under lips and fingertips and kissing him again before he seemed satisfied enough to move on.

Grantaire wasn’t even out of breath, he wasn’t hurting anywhere and Enjolras hadn’t even touched his dick. What he was, though, was rock-hard. It felt like his body, overcome with a myriad of tiny sensations it wasn’t used to, had been overwhelmed into getting hard.

Enjolras pulled back from a last dizzying kiss, stuck two fingers under the waistband of Grantaire’s sweatpants and said, “We’ll get you out of these in a second. Colour?”

“Green,” said Grantaire and again beat himself up for answering too fast. He was green. He was. He still should have taken a second to listen in on himself.

Enjolras waited a moment as if expecting him to change his mind and only looked away when Grantaire nodded. He moved down on the bed and kissed Grantaire’s stomach just above his pants, again eliciting a non-gasp, and worked the material down so achingly slow that R feared he'd planned the same treatment for his lower body that the rest had gotten.

Grantaire was out of his too-warm pants and too-many minutes into Enjolras continuing as he’d started - Christ, he’d softly kissed his ankles, what the _fuck_ was happening - when he finally asked.

“Would you just,” said Grantaire, aiming for a joking tone although it came out embarrassingly desperate, “go ahead and fuck me?”

“But I am,” said Enjolras. “I am.” He licked a line along Grantaire’s hip bone. “Colour?”

Grantaire forced himself to breathe first. In, then out. Was he enjoying this? Or was he just interested in seeing how far Enjolras would take it?

He wasn’t sure.

“Green.”

It took about thrice as long as Grantaire had hoped for Enjolras to work just a single lubed finger into him. Grantaire’s cock lay so heavy against his stomach he physically couldn’t stop thinking about it by the time he’d added a second.

Enjolras seemed quite content with that number, tracing Grantaire’s rim inside and out, sometimes fucking into him fast and then just curling up in a rubbing motion. The sensation was driving Grantaire mad and his brain was overloaded with the interspersed _What_ was Enjolras doing? This had nothing to do with getting him ready to be fucked. It seemed almost like Enjolras was perfectly content, happy even, to be fingering and playing with Grantaire for the rest of eternity.

Grantaire gasped out loud at the thought combined with a specifically poignant thrust of Enjolras’s fingertips that made him look up.

“Could you come from this?”, asked Enjolras, awed, in an almost upsetting mirror image to this same place just a week before. This time though, it wasn’t a question of necessity, of practicability, but of amazement.

And Grantaire let himself say it. “I could come from a single glance if you told me to.”

Enjolras didn’t seem satisfied by this answer. “Do you _want_ to come from this?”

Grantaire breathed and thought about it. He was burning up with the need to come and Enjolras hadn’t even touched his dick yet. More than that, he wasn’t sure he could last much longer.

But he didn’t want to come like this, with his hands twisting in their cuffs and nothing but Enjolras’s fingers inside him. It felt- sterile.

Loveless.

“No,” he said.

“Good,” said Enjolras, his fingers starting their movement up again. “Because I still really want to fuck you.”

Grantaire had to close his eyes as his lungs deflated. “God, _yes_ , please. I’ll just- I need a moment, I can’t-”

“Oh, sure,” said Enjolras, and carefully withdrew his fingers. Grantaire could feel him sit back on the mattress and when he opened his eyes, he was just sitting on his knees seemingly comfortable as anything, amazement in his eyes with which he watched Grantaire lie there and breathe and try to calm down. His body seemed calm, but the look in his eyes was wilder than it had been.

“I literally,” said Grantaire, shifting a bit on the bed, “I can’t calm down at all if you keep looking at me.”

Enjolras smiled as if flattered. He shifted on the bed before hesitating and asking, “Can I touch you?”

“Yes, just don’t do anything to-”

But that didn’t seem to be what Enjolras had in mind. He stood up to take the rest of his clothes off, letting Grantaire stare unashamedly, before lying down next to him. Enjolras lay his head on Grantaire’s chest and just wrapped himself around him like he wanted to do nothing but nap.

“This ok?”, he asked.

“Yeah,” said Grantaire and tried to figure out how his heart could be calming down and speeding up at the same time. “Yeah, sure.”

Jesus Christ. This wasn’t what their sex was like. Had ever been. They weren’t always frantic like they had been last week, but even with Enjolras’s hands tied, it had never been like this. Or was this how Enjolras had felt? Like his entire body was a giant exposed nerve? No; they had basically fucked the same as always. The bondage had only ever been an additional detail, something that had been almost a joke. Right now, Grantaire could focus on nothing but his vulnerable, caught position in contrast to the innocent way Enjolras was resting on top of him.

Grantaire wasn’t sure what made him ask it, exactly. If it was the silence he couldn’t get comfortable with, or if he needed something else but Enjolras’s skin on his to focus on, or if his brain saw the book on his desk and just ran with it.

“What’s your favourite?”

“Hmh?”

“Sonnet,” said Grantaire. He couldn’t see Enjolras’s face from the way he was lying. They both kept perfectly still. “What’s your favourite.”

Enjolras hummed and made Grantaire shiver with the feeling. “I didn’t understand many of them, to be honest,” he said. “I usually read poems and think, ‘Yup, those sure are rhymes.’”

Grantaire laughed and made Enjolras shake on his chest.

“But I liked the ones you wrote notes to. I don’t know if it made me understand what Shakespeare meant, but I feel like I got what you thought about them.”

“Again, to my defence,” said Grantaire, although Enjolras hadn’t said anything bad yet, “I wrote lots of those when I was about 20 and depressed.”

Enjolras shifted so that he could see Grantaire’s face. He was smiling and Grantaire wondered if this ridiculous stupid situation he’d maneuvered himself into was going to make him catch on fire. It sure felt like he was about to.

“I could tell,” said Enjolras. “Not in a bad way. Some were… Intense. And quite emotional. I liked the one with the sins and vices.”

Grantaire pretended to think about which one Enjolras meant. He didn’t need to know exactly how deeply he was still invested in these stupid poems, although that ship had probably sailed. “How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame,” he quoted.

“Yes, that one,” said Enjolras. “You wrote something about how even back then they knew that sin was nothing compared to love.”

Grantaire laughed and felt embarrassment prickle over him. “Cheesy.”

“No,” said Enjolras. He wouldn’t stop looking Grantaire in the eye. “I mean, maybe, but it made me understand why you read poems from hundreds of years ago. I can’t imagine being in your first semester and coming across a poem from the most famous author of all time about how his male lover is so lovely it makes sin worth it.”

“Yeah,” said Grantaire. “Yeah, that was a trip.”

He breathed. His body had calmed down a bit, but emotionally he still felt like an exposed nerve and this conversation wasn’t helping. Should have seen that one coming.

“How’s your arms? Any pins and needles?”, asked Enjolras, eyeing those stupid, stupid handcuffs.

“No,” said Grantaire. He appreciated the clear question; it made it impossible to accidentally lie. “I’m good.”

“Colour?”

Grantaire breathed. He wasn’t right about to come anymore, but it wouldn’t take much to get him there again.

“Just checking in. I’m not ready to move yet anyway.”

“Then green,” said Grantaire. This conversation was both awful and intoxicating and he really didn’t want it to end.

“Good. Another one that I liked,” said Enjolras and shifted around a bit, reminding Grantaire that they were basically touching from head to toe, “Was the unreadable one around one-hundred.”

“What,” said Grantaire.

“You’d completely ruined the page with notes and doodles and whatnot.”

It took Grantaire another second to realise what Enjolras was talking about and he laughed a slightly panicked laugh when he did. “That one,” he said through his pounding heartbeat that Enjolras must have felt clearly under his hand. “I wrote most of those drunk, if that helps.”

Enjolras reached a hand up towards his face and Grantaire stopped breathing. He took a curl between two fingers and twirled it, then reached into his still somewhat wet hair with his entire hand. He didn’t grip it, just held Grantaire’s head in his palm and rubbed a thumb across his temple. Grantaire hadn’t even realised his neck had started to ache from looking down and he sighed thankfully.

“Tell me what it means?”, asked Enjolras. “I mean, I read it online, but I still didn’t get it.”

Grantaire was used to this feeling - to having to talk about things he didn’t want to talk about, having people know about things he didn’t want them to know about - but this was a whole new version of it, a more pleasant one. He closed his eyes for a second, which didn’t help distract him at all, and tried to come up with a summary.

“The sonnet isn’t that good,” he started. “I mean, technically. It's not that inventive. The speaker asks himself in what way else he can phrase that he’s just head over heels for this guy. This is 108 sonnets in, remember. One-hundred and eight. So he says there’s literally nothing new to say, no new way to say it, but he’ll repeat the same words he’s said or written already because it’s the only thing he can do. Like a prayer, over and over again.”

“Sweet boy,” said Enjolras, because he wanted Grantaire to spontaneously self-combust. Of course, he was only quoting the one thing that must have been readable on the page, given how Grantaire remembered retracing the words over and over in drunken determination.

“It’s how he addresses his lover,” Grantaire explained unnecessarily.

Enjolras changed the hand with which he was supporting Grantaire’s head. “Why?”, he asked.

For a second he was going to pretend he didn’t understand what Enjolras was asking, but of course he did. Why would Grantaire be so obsessed with such a small detail?

He could have shrugged and that would have been it. Say that he just found it precious. But Grantaire was Grantaire and he never could keep himself from oversharing and he was already dizzy with the way this night was going, so he told the truth.

“The first thought I had when I read that poem was ‘If someone would ever call me “sweet boy” and _mean it_ , I would probably pass out.’”

Enjolras just looked for a moment. Grantaire’s heart was pounding violently against his ribcage. Just for a second, he wondered if Enjolras was going to-

Then he leaned towards Grantaire and kissed him, just a long pressing of lips. He pulled back just an inch and softly asked, “Ready?”

Grantaire nodded, but Enjolras waited for him to speak up. “Yes. Green. _Yes_.”

Enjolras smiled a satisfied smile and kissed him again, this time deep and filthy as he unwrapped himself from Grantaire.

“I love your cock,” said Enjolras apropos of nothing but that he was now holding it. Grantaire laughed because what else was he supposed to do? “I love your body on top of me. But this is nice. I can finally appreciate some stuff in peace and you can’t just avoid me.”

He bent down and licked a stripe from balls to tip and _holy shit_ , Grantaire had been so wrong when he’d said he was ready.

“Like these legs,” said Enjolras and let go of his twitching cock in order to slip his hands under Grantaire's thighs and hoisted them up, settling down between them. He let his hands run all over Grantaire’s big upper thighs and hips and all the bulges and old stretchmarks and muscles there. “I have to admit that I quite enjoy having them wrapped around me.”

Grantaire was speechless. It had been strange and infuriating and wonderful enough to have Enjolras touch every single part of him; if he was going to keep this commentary going there was no hope for Grantaire’s sanity.

Enjolras lubed up his fingers and slipped two of them back into Grantaire in one go, making him gasp with the memory of before. He continued where they’d paused, as if he were on a mission to make Grantaire unravel at the seams. Before he could complain, though, Enjolras added a third finger and finally, _finally_ seemed like his goal was to properly open him up.

Grantaire informed him that he was ready, yes, really, green, _come on Enjolras fuck me already_ about a million times before Enjolras seemed to agree even remotely. He rolled on a condom and lubed himself up, positioned his dick at Grantaire’s entrance and just looked into his eyes.

“Jesus Christ,” said Grantaire and wrapped his legs tighter around Enjolras, who still didn’t move. “Do you need me to say it again? Here: _please_ , Enjolras. _Please_ fuck me.”

“This is fun,” said Enjolras entirely without malice and slid inside carefully.

Grantaire closed his eyes as Enjolras buried himself fully inside and stilled. They were both breathing very hard considering they’d barely started the real work.

It had been a while since Grantaire had been fucked, even longer in this position. The contrast between Enjolras’s genuinely happy eyes all over him and the sharp thrill of being bound in place and forced to take it was fucking with him in the most delicious way.

When Enjolras finally moved, he gave a few slow test thrusts before starting to fuck him in earnest. Grantaire quickly realised that with his hands on the headboard he could only do so much to stabilize himself, which resulted in every one of Enjolras’s thrusts jolting through his entire body.

“Look at you,” said Enjolras after a while. Grantaire opened his eyes that he hadn’t even noticed had fallen shut. “Beautiful.”

Grantaire gasped so loudly he almost felt stupid about it. _Beautiful_ wasn’t a word that was often used in regard to him. Looking up at Enjolras, though - and he wouldn’t look away again, how could he allow himself to miss any of this -, his eyes were full of genuine awe. It was Enjolras’s horny brain talking, he knew.

But did he _really_ know?

Enjolras wasn’t as precise, or possibly goal-oriented, while fucking than he’d been with his fingers. The result was that soon, Grantaire was in a state of constantly scraping past the edge, never enough to actually push him over but impossible to ignore. It made him so aware of his aching untouched cock, the one that he physically couldn’t touch because his hands were tied up, that he whined out loud.

“Can you,” he said, more to stop Enjolras from slowing down in question and less because he wanted to say it out loud, “Could you touch me?”

Enjolras smiled and didn’t even make him say please. “Desperate,” he said just to tease and wrapped a hand around Grantaire.

Fuck, he got it. Grantaire understood how someone could fully believe in the concept of sin and still decide their lover made it worth it.

Enjolras hummed between panting breaths. “If I stay the night, would you let me ride you tomorrow?”

“Jesus fucking hell,” said Grantaire and regretted his resolve to keep his eyes on Enjolras. He knew this was just dirty talk, that Enjolras was just trying to make him unravel under his fingertips, that he wasn’t actually serious. But the thought of Enjolras wanting to stay in his bed made his skin burn hotter than the promise of morning sex. And the truth was that Enjolras’s face looked as genuine as anything.

He kept stroking him in time with his deep thrusts and Grantaire was _so close_ and he didn't know what to do. They had made begging to come into a game, one of them holding out as long as he could before asking nicely, the other teasing him even then, leaving one another gasping and laughing when they stopped whatever they were doing.

But this was different; Grantaire’s entire body was running so hot with something that felt so much like shame it might have just been that, and tears were stinging in his eyes - no, now that he thought about it, Grantaire was pretty sure that he had been crying for some time. He _had to_ come, needed it so badly he didn't know what he'd do if Enjolras stopped now as they usually did - he thought about using their safeword, but that would only make Enjolras stop, and that was the last thing he wanted, would be able to take- he just had to- he had-

"Please, Enjolras," said Grantaire, words frustratingly the same as always when he was begging, "I can't- Enjolras, I need-"

"I know," said Enjolras. "I know, I won’t stop. I won’t."

Grantaire let out a sound that was so embarrassing he noticed even in his state. He thought he said something about it out loud, but he wasn't sure.

Enjolras leant forward, never ceasing his pace, never stopping the hand on Grantaire, and kissed him on the forehead. _Of all places_. Grantaire closed his eyes. He wasn't sure he would open them again.

"My sweet boy," Enjolras said softly.

Grantaire's orgasm ripped through him so violently that for a second, he wasn't sure what was happening. His entire body exploded in a feeling so intense that he hated it and never wanted it to stop. For a while it seemed that it wouldn’t.

Grantaire woke up from something that hadn’t been sleep. Enjolras was gently kneading his wrists and the covers were pulled up to his chest. He had a vague memory of getting here, of having his hands untied and of Enjolras making him sit up with him, but it felt like everything had happened in a dream.

Grantaire must have said something, because Enjolras said, “Back with me?”

Grantaire realised that Enjolras was sitting behind him against the headboard and had him pulled up against his chest. He was basically enveloped in Enjolras from all sides.

He nodded. “I’m fine,” he said and made a detailed plan to pull his wrists away from the touch but didn’t. Every single one of his muscles was so relaxed it felt like Enjolras was the only thing holding him together.

“That got a lot more intense than I planned,” said Enjolras. His tone was trying to be light.

“That was a mean trick,” said Grantaire and attempted a genuine laugh, which promptly died in his throat.

“What do you mean?”

Grantaire hated that he made him repeat it. “The ‘sweet boy.’”

He’d told Enjolras that he always wanted someone to say it and _mean it_. Using that against him like that- it sure had made him pass out in a way, but still. Kind of a cruel thing to do.

“I wasn’t trying to trick you,” said Enjolras. “I mean, I knew it would make- but I meant it. I really wanted to say it.”

Grantaire stayed silent. He wanted this to be true so badly he didn’t dare question him further.

“I did,” said Enjolras because of course he could feel Grantaire’s doubt. He rested his chin on Grantaire’s shoulder, making him shiver with emotional aftershock. He let go of Grantaire’s wrists and instead tangled their fingers together. “Grantaire, I _did_. I looked at you and thought, I get it. Why he wrote 108 poems about someone and it still wasn't enough. I’ve been thinking about that stupid book for days. I couldn’t believe you would just let me have something like that.”

“You did ask very nicely,” said Grantaire. His heartbeat was so calm in his chest he wondered if something was wrong with it. He felt like that all over, something that never happened after they’d had sex. Usually, he was filled with dread of having to get up and leave before Enjolras would look right through him.

“Stay, please.” _For the night_ , he should have added and didn’t. He didn’t mean just for the night.

“I said I was going to,” said Enjolras. “I have a promise to fulfil.”

Grantaire closed his eyes and leant his head against Enjolras’s. Everything smelled of him, of them.

He was so tired of not saying what he meant, always afraid of driving Enjolras away. He didn’t give a fuck anymore.

“Let’s go out tomorrow,” said Grantaire. His heartbeat stayed calm. “On a _date_ -date. On a ‘this is a real relationship’ date.”

Enjolras turned his head slightly and kissed the spot under Grantaire’s ear. “If you’re paying,” he said.

Grantaire smiled. “In your dreams.”

**Author's Note:**

> some sonnets I read ExR vibes into: 29 37 41 57
> 
> sonnet 59 is the one with "How lovely and sweet dost thou make the shame" (other highlights include "O in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose!” and “O what a mansion have those vices got”) and 108 is the "sweet boy" one.
> 
> in case you don't know it, sonnet 20 is my absolute favourite (although it's misogynistic as hell) because it literally says "you're SO pretty nature must have intended you to be a woman, then fell in love with you, realised she (bc nature is a woman) was having gay feelings, stuck a penis on you and called it a day which sucks for me :( anyway we fucked :)" I'm not making this up it's TRUE
> 
> the voice of my prof in the back of my head is making me add that claiming Shakespeare = the speaker in the sonnets is academically incorrect but I believe they're equal and I can do what I want
> 
> honest feedback is why I'm here!
> 
> thank you!


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